DC Theater Arts

Tag: The Tender Land

Aaron Copland’s ‘The Tender Land’ is an auspicious hit at CUA

Left to right: Joey Chee, Isabel O’Hagan, Emberlein DiSalvo with Sophia Spencer in the background.

I have to admit that I didn’t know much about Aaron Copland going into Catholic University’s production of The Tender Land. This opera, penned in the ’50s and set in the Depression era, boasts music by Copland and a book by Erik Johns (writing under the pseudonym Horace Everett). Directed by James Hampton, Catholic University’s production has the good fortune of featuring Murry Sidlin’s arrangement for chamber orchestra. Sidlin also conducts. Ward Recital Hall, with its exposed brick walls, slightly industrial feel, and smaller stage, provides the perfect acoustics for this tale, which provides only a tiny glimpse of the characters’ lives.

As a mid-century opera, The Tender Land certainly typifies the musical style of that era. Copland’s music swells and retracts as the sun rises and sets on the tight-knit rural community where soon-to-be high-school graduate Laurie (Isabel O’Hagan), her mother (Emberlein Disalvo, as “Ma Moss”), and her grandfather (Joey Chee, as “Grandpa Moss”) live. Drifters Martin (Tae Cha) and Top (Eric Gramatges) have rolled into town looking for work and food. A series of assaults on local young women has awakened the community’s suspicions toward strange men, so it spells trouble when the roving Martin falls for Laurie. Much of the drama revolves around Ma Moss’s distrust of the men, Grandpa Moss’s ornery behavior and overprotectiveness of Laurie and her mother, and Laurie and Martin’s burgeoning relationship.

Left to Right: Isabel O’Hagan, Anastasia Fitenko, Alexis Griess, Keegan Brush, Emberlein DiSalvo

University productions of operas can be very hit-or-miss, often due to a mismatch in the expectations of the department with the natural talents of their current cohort of students. This is not the case with The Tender Land. Its stellar performances, along with appropriate lighting and scenic design, elevate this opera above your typical college-level fare. Believe me when I tell you that these singers are going somewhere. O’Hagan has a clarity and sharpness to her soprano that mingles well with Cha’s warm tenor during Laurie and Martin’s romantic moments. O’Hagan and Cha wouldn’t have been out of place in any professional production. Joey Chee’s booming bass lends an imposing quality to Grandpa Moss, whose presence was genuinely unnerving at times. It’s clear that Chee’s passion comes from deep within; the singer’s whole being is visibly engaged with the craft as he stomps around the stage with his ever-watchful eye. Similar to Chee in wholehearted delivery is Disalvo, whose work as Ma Moss lends a believability and sorrow to the depth of the character’s shattered expectations of her own life. Also notable is Anastasia Fitenko as Beth, Laurie’s younger sister, whose youthful buoyancy adds a lightness to this sometimes bleak opera.

The richness of the combined singers’ vocals made for a particularly touching rendition of “The promise of living.” While the pieces that drew the ensemble intended to be the most powerful, O’Hagan’s delivery of the aria “Once I thought I’d never grow” and Cha’s “Daylight will come in such a short time” were also highlights.

The neutral tones of Scenic Designers Mark and Katherine Wujcik’s set were backlit by Lighting Designer Katie McCreary. The simple, white cyclorama was extremely effective at showing time of day, as McCreary shifts the overall color tone to match the setting. While scenic design evokes the vast, brown fields of painter Andrew Wyeth, it maintains the intimacy and detail of, say, Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” Media set in the Dust Bowl era always has the potential to look washed out and dull, but here it is given an appropriate amount of pastoral grit and character.

Tae Cha, Eric Gramatges, Emberlein DiSalvo, Isabel O’Hagan, and Joseph Chee in ‘The Tender Land.’

Speaking of Andrew Wyeth, watching this opera was—thematically—a bit like looking at “Christina’s World.” It seems a simple concept on the surface, but, as with the Wyeth painting, its somewhat austere and grim subject matter represents more of a triumph over our physical realities and seeming limitations than anything else. The Tender Land has layers upon layers; there’s much here to enjoy regardless of what your background or life experience is. This fan of big, Baroque operas walked away from this production very intrigued by the quietness and depth of Copland’s work—and interested in seeing more of it.

The Tender Land comes across as a professional production because the students involved are professionals. The talent of the singers and the cohesion of the design make this a very auspicious production to be involved in—and one that I highly recommend people attend.

Running Time: Two hours, including one 15-minute intermission.

The Tender Land plays through March 27, 2022, at Ward Recital Hall at The Catholic University of America—348 University Drive NE in Washington D.C. Tickets can be purchased online.

March 26, 2022
In the Moment: Aaron Copland’s ‘The Tender Land’ by The In Series

How fortunate we are to have The In Series. Over the decades it has taken artistic risks for audiences to extend their knowledge and experiences with a creative artist’s more rarely produced works, or those works that, for whatever reason, have lesser reputations in a particular artist’s total repertoire.

Now The In Series has produced a well-accomplished take on a chamber opera from Aaron Copland’s later years. It is The Tender Land from 1954. Copland and librettist Horace Everett (a pseudonym for Erik Johns, as I understand) centered The Tender Land as a Depression-era rural drama. According to available information The Tender land was inspired by stunning photographs and narrative of that classic book about Depression-era America, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee and Walker Evans.

Melissa Chavez. Photo courtesy of The In Series.

This is not a review, but an opinion column. This In Series production has been wonderfully reviewed by my DCMetroTheaterArts colleague Jessica Vaughan.

The quick set-up is this: a Midwestern farm girl named Laurie Moss is only one day from her high school graduation. Graduation will gladden the hearts of her unfulfilled, living through her children mother, her lively younger sister and her domineering, over-protective, lover of wine, paternalistic grandfather. Laurie is at the age when she is facing many a life-defining choice; family ties, life on the farm, love and independence.

Laurie has no Brill Building girl-groups to give her guidance in 3-minutes of pop culture written by the likes of Carole King. She has no one her age to talk about what a kiss might truly mean, or what “love” was as her hormones rage. She has no one but a mother to talk to. And she didn’t trust her mother. Such a constrained life for a young woman. At least a similar character, Oklahoma’s Laurey (based upon Lynn Riggs’ book Green Grow the Lilacs) had an Aunt Eller to confide in, or learn from, didn’t she?

For The Tender Land’s Laurie, time is short to make decisions. As she sings, “the world is wide” for a girl who “Once I thought I’d never grow” and feels that “as long as I live here, I’ll never have my own life, no matter what you (mother) promise.” What will happen to someone feeling so ready to grow up, to experience all that life might bring her beyond the wooden gates of her rural Midwestern farm world.

For me, a key to the opera’s dark, stark, blunt force outlook is that it was written by Copland and Everett during the deepest points of the McCarthy Era and House Un-American Activities Committee times in America (think Angels in America). On top of that it began life as an opera for early 1950’s television, no less. The Tender Land’s fictional Laurie is years away from more the seemingly brighter times of independence for some young women depicted in rockabilly classics such as the Everly Brothers “Wake Up, Little Susie” or Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue.”

The apprehensive public sentiments of the early 1950’s, with the Cold War deeply ingrained including the Rosenberg Trial and the Army-McCarthy hearings appear mirrored in the worried, nervous world view of The Tender Land. It is a place, far from tender, where an accusation of wrong doing is made against two strangers, that even when soon shown false the damage is done and a community and its inhabitants lives upturned.

In The Tender Land, there is no Joseph Welch asking, “Have you no sense of decency?” Life was not sunny in the ironically titled The Tender Land for those outside the tight mainstream of a community, those who were strangers, or those with a desire for independence from their pre-ordained lives.

The Tender Land, has few truly joyous moments, and one such scene takes wine to loosen people up as well as make them easily suspicious. At the end of Act I, the entire 13-member cast bursts into song and a circle dance to “Thank the Lord for his blessing. O let us be joyful.”

Andrew Pardini and cast members. Photo courtesy of The In Series.

Sadly, this joy is interrupted by the quiet concerned whisper of Ma Moss with some serious accusations about the two strangers, Martin and Top, in their midst. For Ma Moss thinks that Top and Martin are the perpetrators of some unthinkable acts against other young women in the area. Even though they are associated from those specifics crimes, it is too late. Grandpa Moss orders the men away after finding Laurie kissing Martin. (It is not lost on me that we, the audience, know, while the men may not have done what they are accused of, they are not merely wandering innocents in the world).

Laurie and Martin make quick plans to run off together, but Martin and his friend Top later that evening agree that the road is no place for Lauri. She is just too well-raised and will slow them down. They leave. The next morning Laurie wakes, to discover she is alone. She is left to decide for herself what next to do. She determines to leave home, making her own way in the world to find her living and growing. As for Ma Moss, she decides to give all her love to her younger daughter Beth. And this all happens in a blink of the eye as if the running time of Copland’s pocket opera was a key issue.

So with the continuing run-up to the 2016 Presidential election, what will the chamber opera or musical theater of these days come up with about those who are “different,” or “outsiders”? After all, it was only a few days ago that this story about “strangers” appeared in the The Washington Post.

Let me add my kudos and thanks along with DCMTA’s Jessica Vaughan to In Series Artistic Director Carla Hübne and her colleagues. The In Series remains true to its mission: “to create innovative, theatrical programming” and to “embrace fresh approaches to the classics” in its production of the not often produced Aaron Copland’s This Tender Land. A happy day indeed for local audiences.

This Tender Land plays through October 25, 2015 at GALA Hispanic Theatre – 3333 14th Street, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call (202) 234-7174, or purchase them online.

Note: How refreshing to enjoy the voices of unamplified singers where their unaltered voices melded with the music of the instrumental ensemble under the baton of Stanley Thurston and the staging of Director Stephen Scott Mazzola.

October 19, 2015
Aaron Copland’s ‘The Tender Land’ at The In Series

In their Americas season, the In Series tackles the quintessentially American composer Aaron Copland and his only and almost entirely unknown opera The Tender Land. Horace Everett wrote the libretto for this piece inspired by photos of share croppers during the Great Depression. It was originally written for television – something that can be said of very few operas. It was never filmed, but did premiere to very little fanfare in the 1954.

Andrew Pardini and cast members. Photo courtesy of The In Series.

Artistic Director Carla Hübner, who met Copland years ago, speculates that it’s performed so infrequently because it is too small for a large company but too complicated for most small companies. The In Series is up to the challenge.

It starts on a simple set by Osbel Susman-Peña with real scraggly trees and a windmill to invoke a Midwestern farm with a simple house that is also a scrim that showcases the lighting design by Stefan Johnson which conjures the prairie sky.

The costumes by Donna Breslin fit the time – right down to the flannel bedecked orchestra, lead by Stanley Thurston. The music is classic Copland with big chords, tricky runs, lots of cadences, and hints of fiddle and American roots music. The 10-person orchestra tackles it all and does justice to the big sounds for this obviously challenging score.

The story is a classic coming of age tale of Laurie Moss and her family and two drifters who come looking for work on the day before she graduates from high school. She has a lot of growing up to do in a single day. Director Steven Scott Mazzola makes good use of the fence that separates the farm from the rest of the world – many characters end up at the gate, staring into the great beyond – bringing life to the themes of the wandering road vs. working the land.

Elizabeth Mondragon (Ma Moss) is the perfect matriarch and shines on “This is like the dress I never had” and the fun quick duet with her younger daughter Beth (Arya Balian) on “Goodness it’s getting late.” She also has the final word of the opera “All Thinking’s Done.” An anthem for mothers of growing daughters everywhere.

Elizabeth Mondragon. Photo courtesy of The In Series.

Melissa Chavez (Laurie Moss) is a rising star with a powerful soprano that filled the theater for “Once I thought I’d never grow” and her triumphant “The sun is coming up.” She also sounds lovely with Nicholas Carratura (Martin), her hapless new love on “Laurie Laurie… Martin, Martin.”

He has a nice tenor and sings often with Andrew Thomas Pardini (Top), his fellow drifter on songs like “We’ve been North and we’ve been South.” Pardini also thrives on the quick and tricky “Oh I was goin’a courtin’.” Scott Sedar (Grandpa Moss) is the force of the play and has a beautiful bass. His trio with Carratura and Pardini “A stranger may seem stranger” is a beautiful, playful, complicated song.

The most famous song of the piece, “The Promise of Living” is an anthem of the American dream, which had the whole on stage creating a wall of sound and promise. The other big ensemble number “Stomp your foot upon the floor” accompanied a huge square dance with choreography by Angelisa Gillyard.

The Tender Land is a true opera of America, with Copland’s fingerprints on every note. It’s a challenging score and emotional story. The In Series production of The Tender Land is moving and fun, brought to life by these dedicated performers and musicians. It’s a fresh and ambitious production of this American gem.

Running Time: Two hours, with one 15-minutes intermission.

The Tender Land plays through October 25, 2015 at the In Series performing at GALA Hispanic Theatre – 3333 14th Street, NW, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call the box office at (202) 204-7763, or purchase them online.

October 18, 2015